This invention relates to a method and composition for hydrocarbonaceous fluid additive concentrates which provide enhanced shelf-life stability, including a reduced tendency to develop a hazy appearance and to form sludge.
Detergent/dispersant compositions are typically an important component of many hydrocarbonaceous fluid additive packages, or concentrates, and are used commercially to reduce the amount of deposits in automotive and diesel engines and engine components. Combustion improvers such as organic nitrate esters are also an important component of the additive package. Corrosion inhibitors such as dimer and trimer acids produced from tall oil fatty acids, oleic acid, linoleic acid, or the like, are commonly incorporated into fuel additive packages. By hydrocarbonaceous fluids is meant any one or more of fuels, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, marine fuels, and the like; or lubricants, either natural or synthetic. Detergent/dispersant compositions may be added to such hydrocarbonaceous fluids separately, however, they are generally added as part of an additive package, which package may contain other components such as demulsifiers, corrosion inhibitors, cold starting aids, dyes, metal deactivators, octane improvers, cetane improvers, emission control additives, antioxidants, and the like.
Typically, fuel additive packages containing combustion improver and detergent/dispersant compositions are prepared as concentrates in bulk and are added to fuels in amounts ranging from about 25 to about 500 pounds per thousand barrels of fuel or more. These bulk concentrates, however, do not always remain clear. Components of the additive concentrates tend to separate from the package, or there may be some interaction among the various components under storage conditions which give the package a hazy appearance or create undesirable sludge in the bulk concentrate during storage. In order to assure uniform addition of all components of the package to hydrocarbonaceous fluids, it is desirable that the components remain in a substantially homogeneous solution. Thus it is an object of this invention to provide a stable hydrocarbonaceous fluid additive package. It is another object of this invention to provide a means for stabilizing a hydrocarbonaceous fluid additive package for long term storage, particularly to reduce the formation of hazy appearance, sludge or sediment in the fuel additive package on long term storage.